Do you wanna comeAccording to a series of itemized campaign finance reports and documents filed with the Louisiana Secretary of State, since 2014, Jeff Landry has funneled more than $120,000 in campaign donations from his annual gator hunt to a company he owns, Bucks and Ducks Game Management LLC, ostensibly for the purchase of alligator hunting tags.
Hunting tags are not to be confused with alligator hunting licenses, the costs of which are listed separately by Landry’s campaign, which reported spending approximately $21,539 for alligator hunting licenses between 2015 to 2020.
The problem with this accounting, however, is that whereas the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries charges for alligator hunting licenses ($25 for Louisiana residents and $150 for nonresidents), alligator hunting tags are given out for free.
The reason the tags are free and non-transferable is because that is how the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries keeps controls on how many gators are hunted and from where. The reason Landry passes campaign funds through a recreational hunting business he owns in order to skirt those laws is because he's raising tons more cash networking with other Republicans he invites to a gator hunt adventure weekend.
Landry has been hosting political fundraisers at the “camp” since 2011, the first year of his one and only term in Congress. Perhaps ironically, the event didn’t begin drawing significant attention until 2014. That year, a young congressman from Indiana named Todd Rokita took some heat back home when he turned up at the $5,000-a-head fundraiser in the thick of his own reelection campaign.
“Our little crew brought $30,000 for Jeff Landry from Indiana, because we believe he’s good for the country,” Rokita, who is currently serving as Indiana’s attorney general, boasted to Melinda Deslatte of the Associated Press. He wasn’t the only one of Landry’s former colleagues to make the pilgrimage. Then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy showed up as well.
The gator hunt quickly earned a spot on Team Trump’s calendar. Don Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle turned up in 2019, as did Citizens United chairman and former Trump deputy campaign manager David Bossie and former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.
Landry is already sending out Save the Date reminders for this year’s gator hunt, the 11th annual, which is set for Sept. 9 through Sept. 11. He’s also soliciting corporate sponsorships.
Pretty funny. But it's hardly the most egregious of Landry's several unethical business arrangements only the most.. um.. exotically themed. And it's apparently been quite a successful little racket he's had going for over a decade now. It certainly gets attention from his rivals, anyway. Here's a photo John Bel shared the same weekend that Landry had Don Jr. up at the "camp."
I guess we can read that as trolling, in a way? Although it also seems oddly competitive, maybe even pathetic. I'm not sure the correct response to Landry's big gross corporate trophy hunt is, "Hello, I also kill these animals for sport, don't you know!"
Of course, it could always be worse.
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - Pastor Tony Spell from Life Tabernacle Church
in Central has been cited for alligator hunting violations back on June
5, 2021. According to a release from Louisiana Wild Life and Fisheries, agents
received information about Spell posting photos to social media about an
alligator he had shot behind his church.
I'm not exactly an expert but Spell's gator appears to be a juvenile, maybe? Maybe I'm wrong. This says it's 6 feet long.
Agents responded to the scene where they found the pastor in possession of a 6-foot alligator.
Alligator hunting season does not open until September 1.
Killing an alligator during a closed
season and without a tag brings a $400 to $950 fine and up to 120 days
in jail for each offense.
Spell also
faces civil restitution totaling $375.80 for the replacement value of
the illegally taken alligator according to agents.
Anyway, I'm sure they'll have no trouble at all getting the fine out of that guy.
